


Looking for a Friend for the End of the World

by tisfan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Happy Ending, Umbrella Academy - Freeform, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 19:29:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18923569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: “The world mourns,” Bucky said, looking out over the lake, “and then it moves on.”Which is how it should have been. Which was how it had always been, until the future had happened and become the past. He didn’t know if anything made sense anymore. He’d died and come back so many times, and the only people who’d ever grieved for Bucky Barnes were gone.





	Looking for a Friend for the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flowerofthewolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerofthewolf/gifts).



“The world mourns,” Bucky said, looking out over the lake, “and then it moves on.”

Which is how it should have been. Which was how it had always been, until the future had happened and become the past. He didn’t know if anything made sense anymore. He’d died and come back so many times, and the only people who’d ever grieved for Bucky Barnes were gone.

It didn’t matter. Steve G. Rogers died about four hours after passing over the mantle of Captain America to Sam Wilson. He died after deliberately not telling them where he’d been for the last fifty years or so. Or five seconds, depending on how you looked at it. “Getting a life, like Tony was always telling me to do.”

“Do you miss him?” The girl, Wanda something-or-other, came up beside him. She looked remarkably bad in black, sallow and grief stricken. Well, not everyone would be the winter soldier and pull off the death incarnate look. Probably better for the world that way.

“Yeah,” Bucky said. Even if, in a way, he felt closer to Captain America than he had in decades. Maybe closer than ever. He knew Steve. But that Captain America had melded himself with the ideal, had tried to be what everyone expected of him.

Sam, on the other hand, was still wobbling around out there. Maybe Bucky could have a better time shaping that Cap than the other one.

Bucky’d been too busy being scared and ravaged to have any influence with Cap during the War.

“Do you?”

“I don’t know,” Wanda said. “I’m not sure he was ever really here at all. Funny, for someone who can bend reality, I could never quite find Steve in mine. He was like a ghost in his own life.”

“Steve was always stubborn,” Bucky said. “And he could never let go of anything; a grudge, an ideal, nothin’.”

“I’m sorry that-- well, that he abandoned you,” Wanda said.

Bucky managed a laugh for that, a rumble deep in his chest. “He didn’t,” Bucky said. “I knew what he was gonna do as soon as they started talkin’ about going back in time and puttin’ the stones back. What little of that I even understood. Ya can’t just put  _quantum_ in front of a word like it makes you look smart.”

“It’s okay to be angry about it,” Wanda said. “You can be happy that he had what he wanted, that he lived his life, that he loved you, and still be mad that he left you.”

“Who else did you lose?” Bucky wondered. He didn’t know much about her, the fiery, feisty little witch that was another one of people who followed Steve.

“Everyone,” she said. “And when time was reversed and we were all brought back, I gained… no one. Everyone who ever cared about me is gone, and I will never get them back.”

Bucky rolled his tongue around in his mouth a moment. “Well, I got nothin’, and you got nothin’, so…”

“Oh, wait, I know this math. Nothing and more nothing… equals one?”

Despite that, there was a time to her mouth that spoke of interest. Bucky’d been pretty good, at one time, reading those signs.

“For real big quantities of nothin’ yeah, sometimes.”

“Is this the part where you’re asking me to go have a cup of coffee with you?”

“Do you dance?”

“You think you can find someplace for us to dance?”

“Doll, the world, she just got saved. It won’t be that hard t’ find an open bar and a band.”

“All right, then,” Wanda said.

_Don’t take it too hard, Buck. Maybe she’s got a friend._

***

The Rusty Nail was not original, or particularly remarkable. The building was made of simple wood and a tar paper roof, with a door that might have one point been a cheery shade of red and now looked like dried blood. But it was on the way from Stark’s place to pretty much anywhere they were going, and it was open.

Which made it the perfect stop.

They went in and there were a half-dozen or so barflies clustered at the polished wooden bar, two couples that were half-heartedly dancing to a jukebox in the corner, another couple that was necking in one of the booths.

“Table for two?”

Bucky nodded.

“Thank you, yes,” Wanda said, and they followed the hostess.

Bucky peered over the dirty menu. They might as well get something to eat before they expended calories. And a drink or eight. Bucky had an enhanced metabolism, but with some effort, he could get a little tipsy.

The waitress came, took their orders, and raised an eyebrow at the cash Bucky put down. She looked from one of them to the other. “You were Snaps?”

It hadn’t occurred to Bucky that anything had changed so much that cash was unacceptable. But maybe he should have asked. “Yes.”

“Yeah, don’t know how we’re gonna deal with a hundred and some million more people again,” the waitress said, sighing. “This stuff’s worthless, since the Snap. You’ll want to hit up a HomeSec station as soon as you can, get your IDs updated. For now, food doesn’t cost. Cooking, serving, _that_ costs. Welcome back.”

“How does it work?” Wanda wondered.

“Everyone works off the IDs, you do jobs, we put credits on your chip. You need something, your chip’s got it. When the Snap happened--” the waitress looked off into the distance. “--I was the only one left in the bar. Everyone’s cash was just… out for the taking. But it was only worth something because the government said it was. Took… it took time, but we got it working again.”

“Which is?”

“You work, you get fed, you have housing. For a long time, there was just… stuff out there, if you wanted stuff. Services, that became the new money. It wasn’t that you couldn’t have a car if you wanted one, but that you couldn’t find someone to _keep it running_.”

“What sort of work?”

“Well, any, really. Service. You need work, HomSec’ll get you set up. Street clean up was big, the first couple years. I don’t know what we’re going to do now.”

“Figure it out,” Bucky said. “People always do. And we can work. If you need-- work. Around here.” It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done dishes or swept floors to pay for a meal. He wasn’t proud.

“Sure. We always have work. You two have a home?”

Bucky and Wanda exchanged glances. “Yes, we’re… going that way soon. We were up here on vacation when-- the event. Thing. Happened.”

Which wasn’t true. He and Wanda had rematerialized in Wakanda, exactly where they’d died. He’d come across her sobbing over the spot where Vision’s corpse remained. He hadn’t come back. She’d fought him, kicked and screamed, as he tried to comfort her, and then the monks had arrived with promises to bring them to the final battle where they were needed.

“Thanos,” Wanda had said. “Bring me to him.”

_Steve_ , Bucky had thought. Because Steve would always be right where the fighting was. It had never even occurred to Bucky that Steve might have gotten Snapped. Because it was Steve.

And so they’d gone. Because there was always a fight.

But it was close enough to true for someone who wouldn’t care.

“You got family left, from Before?”

Another look, and then, “not anymore.”

“Right, then,” she said. “My name is Agnes. My husband, who does the cooking, that’s Hazel. We have some a room over the garage, if you need somewhere to stay, while you get adjusted to… well, while we all get adjusted.”

Bucky and Wanda exchanged a third look in as many minutes. Then Wanda put her hand on Bucky’s. “Yeah, yeah, I think we’d like that. Thank you.”

***

There was a lot of work that went into a bar, Wanda realized. She’d never really thought about it before; when she was a child, her parents had worked; father at the shop and mother had done all the housecleaning and cooking and she’d done some mending and laundry on the side. And then the twins were alone, and then working for Hydra. And then the Avengers.

Holding down an actual job wasn’t a thing she’d done before.

“I can’t decide if I like this or not,” Wanda said. She loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. It was a simple task, boring, repetitive.

Hazel, the cook and handyman, chuckled and shook his head. “It’s the simple things in life that we take for granted, right up until we’re neck deep in what’s not simple. I like this job.”

“What did you do, before?” Wanda asked, making small talk.

“Kid, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Hazel said.

“Oh, I think I might,” Wanda said. “I am no longer what I seem, either.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised. None of us are what we used to be. But we can be something else, now. The world’s full of new choices to make. Everything we used to be, that all ended five years ago and we can remake ourselves.”

“I did that, once, too. I don’t really think it was a change for the better,” Wanda said, scratching at a stubborn bit of lettuce that was clinging to a plate.

“And here, fate has given you another go at it,” Hazel told her. “I see the way you look at that boy. My advice, don’t wait.”

Wanda couldn’t help the small smile. It didn’t seem like it had been five years since she’d been Snapped. It had barely been a few days as her mind saw time.

And yet, Vision’s death was simultaneously only a few moments ago, destroyed in a way that couldn’t be undone.

And it was a lifetime ago.

She couldn’t tell anymore.

“I won’t,” Wanda said, because that was also true. She had no intentions of waiting for whatever this was, with Barnes.

They, neither of them, had family to go back to. They didn’t have jobs, or even, really, friends.

They didn’t want to depend on the Stark legacy for a man that neither of them felt comfortable with, nor intrude on his widow in her time of grief.

They had nothing, except each other.

And maybe, maybe that wasn’t so bad.

When the dishes were done, and Bucky had finished mopping the floor and picking up the main bar, they’d staggered up to the small apartment over the garage. A hide-a-bed sofa, and a ton of Ikea furniture made it homey, with all the amenities, while still being smaller than a one room let in New York City.

Tiny stove, mini fridge, a single burner.

It wasn’t the Avenger’s compound -- which was pretty much rubble and ruin anyway -- but it could be _home_.

Maybe.

“Hazel thinks we should stay,” Wanda said.

Bucky considered it. “He’s like me,” he said, finally. “A killer, who wants to retire. I don’t know what he did before, but he’d probably be a good partner, if things came down to a fight.”

“They don’t have to,” Wanda protested. “We could just, let it be over.”

“We can try that, doll, if you want,” Bucky said. “But it always comes down to a fight. And while I ain’t quite ready to be the next Captain America, I can’t sit by an’ let wrong things be done.”

“We’re not that far away,” Wanda pointed out. “If they need us, they can find us. I’m not talking about forever. Just time. Time to rest and time to be ourselves. Time to heal.”

If Bucky considered it, or had second thoughts, or internal debate, Wanda didn’t notice. He stepped into her personal space and touched two fingers to her chin, tilting her face up so she was looking at him. “That what you want, doll?”

“For tonight, at least,” she said, impish. “I reserve the right to change my mind. I might get bored.”

“Believe me, doll,” Bucky said, “ain’t nothin’ boring about being with me.”

***

Bucky cupped his hands around her face, one on either side, and kissed her. Lowered his mouth to hers, gentle, kind. Not rushing it. He hadn’t been with a dame in… longer than he could remember. Sometime back when Natasha was just coming into her own, but he didn’t really remember what year that was.

So he wanted it to last, wanted it to be special and sweet.

A confirmation of the fact that they were both alive (again) and both wanting.

His mouth was soft, sweet, and he waited for her to sigh into it, before he let himself breach the seal of her lips with his tongue, sweeping inside to taste her.

She opened her mouth, and she was delicious, like lemon meringue, feminine and warm, and she was returning his kiss with an interest that heated him, and then burned out of control until they were biting at each other, frantic and eager.

His hand slid down her body until metal fingers curled against her rear, pliant and rounded and perfect. He wanted her, he wanted all of her, right now.

She was already peeling off her clothes, on the same page as he was. Her breasts were firm and bared to his touch, the bra going flying off across the room, lightly coated in that reddish smoke of her power.

“Magic clothes,” Bucky murmured, nipping at her earlobe. “That’s handy.”

“Is that a fact?” And she bunched her hands up in his shirt. “Tell me if you’re attached to it.”

“Take it off me, baby,” Bucky said, and he felt the pulse of her magic like the sonic voice of a whale, a soft whuff of air that left him gasping and yet entirely unbruised. Naked. Even his boots were gone. “That’s somethin’ else.”

He lowered his mouth to her bared breasts, licking at one firm nipple until it peaked under his tongue. Suckled at it. She twined her hands in his hair, holding him to her, “Don’t stop.”

“Oh, I don’t intend to,” Bucky told her. He hauled her over to the sofa -- they hadn’t even bothered to set it up as a bed and it didn’t matter, they weren’t going to make it to a bed, not right then -- and laid her down on it.

She spread her pretty, pale thighs and wrapped her legs around his hips as he moved over her.

Wanda was so warm, her skin practically radiating heat. “That’s good.” She bit him, her teeth sinking in to the fleshy part of his shoulder, a spark of pain that just put an edge on the passion. He groaned against her neck, and pulled back to look at her.

“Little feisty, ain’tcha?”

She brushed a lock of his too-long hair out of his face, tucked it behind his ear. “I’ll be whatever you need.”

“Yeah, I know you will,” he said, and he didn’t know how it had happened, he barely knew her. A few days here, a few days there, and suddenly she was the most important thing in the world to him.

He shifted around, trying not to squash her into the sofa, which was not aided at all by the way she kept using her legs to pull herself up to him. He gave up with a groan, grinding down on her, feeling the way his cock pressed into her thigh.

“You feel so good,” she told him. “Come on, we can try slow later, right now I just need to scream.”

“Are you ready for me? Maybe I should check,” and he slid his hand between her legs, not really thinking about it until she let go to watch as his metal hand brushed over her thigh.

“Would you look at that,” she breathed, awed. “I did not think I had that kink, but oooh, yeah, you do that--”

He touched her, sliding one metal fingertip into her folds, testing the pliancy of her skin there, the wetness of it. She opened her knees, giving him room to work, and he worked her. The arm gave him all sorts of feedback, pressure and frequency, and he ran the calculations on her pleasure with the same sort of intensity that he would have given to lining up the perfect shot, until she was clutching at the bicep and riding his damn hand right into a whimpering climax.

She was still quivering with it when he sheathed himself in her, and she screamed, her fingernails digging into his back. He relished each little crescent of pain, the way she made him feel. His thighs settled between hers, and he buried his face against the side of her throat. Safe, safe, perfect, lovely, that little voice in the back of his head said.

He moved, his body falling into that rhythm of need, stroking her, thrusting into that warm, silk wetness. Satiating himself on her body, feeling it clench and squeeze around him. He burned with it, and they burned together. He slid his arms under her body, pulled her even closer, knowing he had to be bruising her tender skin, but he didn’t care, he couldn’t let her go. They moved together, eager, skin against skin.

“Bucky!”

The sound of his own name was like the breaking of a seal, the snapping of a twig, and it turned him loose on her. He shuddered toward completion. Never looking away from her face, he let himself tumble over the edge.

He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, practically mashing her into the sofa, before she squirmed beneath him, getting comfortable. He propped himself up to look at her, her neck pink with beard burn and few deeper red bite marks. Beautiful. Marked as his, claimed. At least for tonight.

She kissed him, a soft nuzzle at his mouth, another one on the bone of his chin, licked a line down his throat.

“We’ll stay,” she decided for them. “For a while.”

“As long as we need to.”

Wanda tipped her face until she was looking up at him. “Pretty sure I’m always going to need you.”

He tucked his nose back into that safe place against her neck, breathing as he settled. It had been fine, it had been so good.

Safe.

He was home.


End file.
